Train crash investigation focusing on truck driver's actions

Investigators looking into Wednesday's deadly crash involving a train carrying GOP members of Congress are focusing on the actions of the driver of a truck the train struck, a source with knowledge of the investigation tells CNN. Eyewitnesses have told National Transportation Safety Board investigators the truck driver -- who is alive but in serious condition, according to authorities -- was seen trying to snake his way through the crossing gates, despite signals that included lights warning of the oncoming train, two sources with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.

The engineer of an Amtrak train sounded his horn for three seconds and eventually hitting the emergency brake , slowing the train 50 mph before it slammed head-on into a freight train near Columbia, S . C ., federal investigators said Monday..

The NTSB also said the train' s engineer , Bradon Bostian, applied emergency brakes seconds before the crash . Just before entering the curve, the sound of the engineer applying the emergency brake is heard.

FILE PHOTO: Emergency responders are at the scene after an Amtrak passenger train collided with a freight train and derailed in Cayce, South Carolina, U.S., February 4, 2018. REUTERS/Randall Hill/File Photo

National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt presents the ongoing investigation to the media during a press conference at SC Emergency Management Division in Cayce, South Carolina, on February 4, 2018. Two Amtrak employees were killed and more than 100 other people were injured early Sunday when a passenger train carrying 147 people hit a CSX freight train in South Carolina, authorities said. / AFP PHOTO / Logan CyrusLOGAN CYRUS/AFP/Getty Images

The engineer of an Amtrak train sounded his horn for three seconds and eventually hit the emergency brake, slowing the train to 50 mph before it slammed head-on into a freight train near Columbia, S.C., federal investigators said Monday.

Brother of Amtrak employee who died said sibling worried about safety

The brother of Michael Kempf, an Amtrak employee killed when a train crashed on Sunday in South Carolina, said his brother often expressed safety concerns.The brother of an Amtrak engineer killed in a crash in South Carolina on Sunday said safety on the rails was among his sibling's biggest concern.

The National Transportation Safety board ( NTSB ) found that the Amtrak engineer accelerated As the train entered the curve, the locomotive engineer ( engineer ) applied the emergency brakes . He accelerated to 67 mph in compliance with the authorized speed and sounded the horn as he

Earlier, a National Transportation Safety Board official says the engineer applied the emergency brakes moments before the crash .

The impact of the crash early Sunday was so intense that it moved the empty CSX freight train 15 feet from where it was parked on tracks adjacent to the main rail line, according to Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash. The Amtrak train's conductor and engineer were killed, and 116 others were hospitalized.

Sunday's crash in Cayce, S.C., about four miles south of Columbia, was the third high-profile incident involving an Amtrak train in less than two months. Last Wednesday, an Amtrak train carrying GOP lawmakers to their annual retreat in West Virginia hit a garbage truck outside Crozet, Va. No lawmakers were seriously injured, but a passenger in the truck was killed.

Charges reinstated vs. Amtrak engineer in Philadelphia crash

An Amtrak engineer has been ordered to stand trial on criminal charges for a deadly 2015 derailment in Philadelphia. A judge on Tuesday reinstated involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment charges against 34-year-old Brandon Bostian.Another judge had thrown out the charges last year, ruling that the evidence pointed to an accident, not negligence.Pennsylvania prosecutors appealed. Judge Kathryn S. Lewis ruled that the earlier judge had erred and that there was sufficient evidence to send the case to trial.Bostian sat stunned as the decision was announced.

At a press conference this afternoon, NTSB spokesman Robert Sumwalt said the engineer of the Amtrak train that derailed last night in Philadelphia applied the emergency brake “just moments” before the fatal crash .

The engineer saw the SUV and applied the emergency brake as the train traveled at 58 mph, just under the speed limit of 60 More than a dozen other people were injured in the crash . It’ s not known why the SUV stopped on the tracks in Valhalla, about 30 miles north of New York City, the NTSB said.

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The crashes have renewed concern about whether enough is being done to equip railroads with an automatic braking system known as positive train control, which Sumwalt and others say could have prevented Sunday's fatal crash and one that occurred in December, just outside Seattle.

PTC originally was supposed to be in place by the end of 2015, but after a push by the rail industry, Congress postponed the deadline until the end of this year, with the possibility that it could be extended to the end of 2020.

Last month, however, Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao sent letters warning railroad industry leaders that they must meet the end-of-year deadline.

On Monday, members of the Association of American Railroads, which lobbies for the freight industry, said its members will meet the deadline.

Amtrak train breaks apart while traveling at high speed

Amtrak says the Acela 2150 train experienced a "mechanical issue when two of the train's cars separated"WASHINGTON -- An Amtrak train broke apart early Tuesday morning as it was traveling from Washington, D.C., to Boston. The Acela 2150 train experienced a "mechanical issue when two of the train's cars separated" just before 7 a.m., according to Amtrak spokesperson Jason Abrams.

The engineer of Amtrak Northeast Regional Train 188 that was traveling at 106 mph in a 50-mph zone in Philadelphia

"The railroads are very far along," said Michael J. Rush, senior vice president of the Association of American Railroads. "All of the (seven major railroads) are going to make it by (December) 2018."

What "making it" means will vary. The law passed by Congress puts a December deadline on hardware installation, acquisition of the mandated radio spectrum and training of employees in its use.

The law also requires that 50 percent of the system be switched on by December. If the railroads comply with that deadline they will then be required to complete the balance of the system by the end of 2020.

In the briefing with reporters on Monday, Sumwalt said the information about the Amtrak train's speed and the engineer's actions, comes from the data recorder, which was retrieved from the wreckage. Investigators were hopeful that the front-facing video camera retrieved from the train's locomotive Sunday would offer them more insight into what happened before the crash. However, it was discovered that the recording ended a few seconds before the crash. A forensics team in Washington is working on the footage, he said. The train hit a top speed of 57 mph before the engineer began to slow it; the speed limit in the corridor is 59.

After SC train crash, wife of conductor sues Amtrak, CSX Corp

<p>The widow of an Amtrak train conductor killed this week in a South Carolina collision filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Amtrak and CSX Corp, the Florida Times-Union reported. Conductor Michael Cella and engineer Michael Kempf were killed in the Sunday crash between a New York-to-Miami Amtrak passenger train and an unoccupied CSX freight train.</p>The widow of an Amtrak train conductor killed this week in a South Carolina collision filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Amtrak and CSX Corp, the Florida Times-Union reported.

NTSB : Amtrak engineer appeared to apply brakes in the final seconds before derailing. The engine from an Amtrak train crash onto Interstate 5 on Monday, is checked by workers before being transported away from the scene, Wednesday, in DuPont, Wash.

He applied the emergency brake at a speed of 106 mph, three seconds before the train derailed. Amtrak Engineer During Crash , NTSB Investigation Finds.

About seven seconds before the end of the recording, the train's horn was activated for three seconds.

"A lot has been done and a lot needs to be done," Sumwalt said. "But I'm confident that our investigator will be able to piece this together."

He said investigators are expected to remain in Cayce though the weekend.

Amtrak 91, traveling on tracks owned and maintained by freight railway giant CSX, was supposed to pass over the switch to continue onto the main-line tracks. Instead, it was directed onto a portion of track known as "siding," which was occupied by the parked CSX train, Sumwalt said.

Sumwalt said officials have confirmed that a signal outage along the rail corridor meant that trains had to be manually directed through the area. He said the outage was because of upgrades tied to the installation of PTC. Investigators also are focusing on why a railroad switch was locked in the wrong position, sending the Amtrak train off the main line and onto the side track.

Who's at fault in Amtrak crash? Amtrak will pay regardless

Federal investigators are still looking at how CSX railway crews routed an Amtrak train into a parked freight train in Cayce, South Carolina, last weekend. But even if CSX should bear sole responsibility for the accident, Amtrak will likely end up paying crash victims' legal claims with public money.Amtrak pays for accidents it didn't cause because of secretive agreements negotiated between the passenger rail company, which receives more than &dollar;1 billion annually in federal subsidies, and the private railroads, which own 97 percent of the tracks on which Amtrak travels.

The engineer of Amtrak Northeast Regional Train 188 that was traveling at 106 mph in a Updated at 5:30 p.m. Engineer Applied Emergency Brakes . The engineer applied the full emergency braking system moments before the derailment, NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt said.

Sumwalt said NTSB investigators have also been able to interview four CSX crew members, including the engineer, conductor and the dispatcher who would have been responsible for directing the Amtrak train because of a signal outage along the rail line.

Sumwalt could not say whether the Amtrak engineer's actions before the collision indicated that he knew the train had detoured off the main line and onto the side track.

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The engineer then applied the brakes but apparently not the emergency brake , the National Transportation Safety Board ( NTSB ) said in a statement after retrieving and reviewing data from the so-called black box and inward- and outward-facing cameras. Monday’ s crash south of Seattle killed

At the time of the crash , Train 89 was moving at 106 mph — within the track speed of 110 mph — but by the time the engineer applied the emergency brake , it was on a collision course with the backhoe and the two Amtrak workers manning it.

Amtrak trains have PTC equipment, but the freight railroads on which Amtrak trains travel, including the one involved in Sunday's crash, must install and activate transponders along their rail beds for the system to work.

According to Sumwalt, the Amtrak train was headed south on the main track, as directed by dispatchers with CSX. The empty freight train, which had unloaded its cargo of automobiles, was parked on a side track adjacent to the main line. When the Amtrak train moved past the area, it hit a switch that moved it to the side track where it crashed into the freight train.

Installing PTC is an expensive challenge for the railroads, requiring that hardware be added in 25,000 locomotives and sensors be placed along the railway beds. The payoff, safety advocates say, is that it will help prevent collisions and derailments.

Rush said Monday, that PTC has been implemented on 56 percent of required route miles. He added that 78 percent of locomotives have been equipped with the technology. PTC has also been installed on 72 percent of the track segments required by law.

In addition, 87 percent of railroad employees have been trained in the system.

When the industry appealed to Congress for relief from the looming deadline in 2015, it said it had already invested more than $6.5 billion, anticipated a total price tag of $10.6 billion and needed additional time to put the system in place.

The NTSB says it has investigated 146 rail incidents since 1969 that positive train control could have prevented. The toll in those incidents is 291 people killed and 6,574 injured.

But industry groups have disputed the contention that PTC would prevent most rail crashes.

PTC could prevent only about 4 percent of incidents, said the Association of American Railroads' Rush. "There are lots and lots of other accidents that are not PTC preventable."

Airport vehicles collide at London Heathrow; 1 dead, 1 hurt .
Two airport vehicles collided on the airfield at London's Heathrow Airport on Wednesday.Police and the ambulance service said they were called just after 6 a.m. to a crash on the taxiway.

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The engineer of an Amtrak train sounded his horn for three seconds and eventually hitting the emergency brake , slowing the train 50 mph before it slammed head-on into a freight train near Columbia, S . C ., federal investigators said Monday..

The NTSB also said the train' s engineer , Bradon Bostian, applied emergency brakes seconds before the crash . Just before entering the curve, the sound of the engineer applying the emergency brake is heard.

Derailment - ntsb.gov

The National Transportation Safety board ( NTSB ) found that the Amtrak engineer accelerated As the train entered the curve, the locomotive engineer ( engineer ) applied the emergency brakes . He accelerated to 67 mph in compliance with the authorized speed and sounded the horn as he

At a press conference this afternoon, NTSB spokesman Robert Sumwalt said the engineer of the Amtrak train that derailed last night in Philadelphia applied the emergency brake “just moments” before the fatal crash .

The engineer saw the SUV and applied the emergency brake as the train traveled at 58 mph, just under the speed limit of 60 More than a dozen other people were injured in the crash . It’ s not known why the SUV stopped on the tracks in Valhalla, about 30 miles north of New York City, the NTSB said.

The engineer of Amtrak Northeast Regional Train 188 that was traveling at 106 mph in a 50-mph zone in Philadelphia

NTSB : Amtrak engineer braked seconds before crash - www.usatoday.com

NTSB : Amtrak engineer appeared to apply brakes in the final seconds before derailing. The engine from an Amtrak train crash onto Interstate 5 on Monday, is checked by workers before being transported away from the scene, Wednesday, in DuPont, Wash.

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